VIRILE SENTIMENT 107 



making remarkable efforts at much personal sacrifice 

 to lower the infantile mortality of the lowest strata of 

 society ; and with workhouses, infirmaries, and 

 lying-in hospitals using baby incubators to fan back 

 into existence the weakly lives that benign Nature, in 

 the noblest interests of her race, demands shall perish, 

 there is no need of a vivid or expansive imagination 

 to picture the end of a nation that has become thus 

 far decadent. It seems that we, as a nation which 

 have so long professed a belief in a merciful and loving 

 God, have forgotten the old cry of resignation, " Thy 

 will be done," that brought comfort, courage, and 

 virility to Englishmen of the past when the processes 

 of Nature eliminated their weak and sickly. They 

 understood not these processes, and in ignorance 

 resigned themselves in a noble faith that all was work- 

 ing towards a beneficent end ; and, in their resigna- 

 tion, found their salvation and that of their race. 

 The generation of to-day believes it understands these 

 processes, and in the arrogance of its belief has played 

 the coward and traitor to its heritage. In its senti- 

 mental interference with the workings of Nature it is 

 leading the community to its destruction. In its 

 attempts to be superhuman it has become inhumane. 

 In its efforts to save life it has increased the number of 

 individuals to whom existence means misery and pain, 

 and is decreasing those to whom Hfe means health, 

 happiness, and progress. It recalls to my mind some 

 of Wordsworth's lines in " The Excursion " : — 



" Vain-glorious Generation ! what new powers 

 On you have been conferred ? What gifts, withheld 

 From your progenitors, have ye received, 



